ANB:  Wow! I didn't know about the Calvin & Hobbes movie!

Ted: It was a fluke that I ran across the information. I was searching a database of cartoon voice actors and was surprised to see that the credits for one included the mom in Calvin & Hobbes. I clicked on that link and saw the rest of the actors. Bill Watterson himself was credited for the two title characters.

My assumption is that early on Watterson didn't have such strong feelings about the subject, but once he got involved -- and apparently, kept tight control of -- the plan for an animated feature, he started realizing the difficulties of animating Hobbes and maintaining the spirit of the strip. When he put the kabosh on it, that may have been when his conflicts with the syndicate began. That's just speculation, though.

ANB: What did you do to get syndicated?

Ted: I approached syndication like I would any other job. I'd spent years developing my cartooning skills, but started working on my storytelling more. Instead of putting together something that was "new and edgy," I picked a universal theme, the male/female relationship. I worked with my wife on developing characters that were based on us and tried to give them kind of a "classic" look. I put together six weeks worth of dailies along with a couple of Sundays and sent them out with my resume and a cover letter to all the syndicates.

ANB:  It sounds like Spooner fans have a lot to thank your wife for!

Ted: Absolutely. I remember our first brainstorming session at a little Irish restaurant in Florida (okay, it was a pub). Several of the ideas from that session were used in the strips for the launch. She really got behind me on this project and believed in it.  She keeps me on track and helps Spooner from becoming just a "guy strip." I'm not quite as clueless as Spooner, but as an example, I once had Roxanne using the phrase, "popping out babies." Robbin let me know that isn't a term women use. She helps keep a balance to the strip. She's always offering new scenarios for me to work with and is my primary editor. She has written when I've been in a pinch, too.

ANB:  When I first saw Spooner, I loved the "classic" look of the strip! What made you decide to go for that look?

Ted: When I first started sketching character work-ups, they just looked like everything else I ever drew, and I wanted them to look different. I've always drawn very "roundy," so I redrew Spooner, doing the exact opposite of what came natural. I made his nose pointy instead of round, brought his hair forward instead of combed back, drew dots for eyes with no whites, made him slouch and bend his knees... I also wanted to give him a set of clothes that he'd wear every day, like the cartoon characters of old did. After a couple months of drawing him in a default black t-shirt, I tried out a fifties-type shirt and it seemed to work.

I also kept the style of strip as simple as I could, both to create an older look for the strip and to make sure I could keep up the look of the strip on a daily basis. I suppose the alternative to having a "classic" look, though, would be to have a modern one, which, based on the modern assumption that writing is more important than art, I'd define, quite frankly, as boring.

ANB:  You mentioned working on your storytelling skills. How did you do this?

Ted: The areas I'm most concerned with are dialogue, timing and layout. I think camera angles aren't nearly as important as framing and editing. The way each frame is laid out creates the mood and sets the flow for the strip. The biggest obstacle to all this is the format itself. I try to not let the frames dictate the look and flow of the strip.

I work at keeping the dialogue simple and to the point while trying to keep it from becoming bland, impersonal and terse. I'm inspired by old television shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, books by Mark Twain and anything that makes each line of dialogue count. Timing can be a little more difficult in today's more common three-panel format. Four allows a little more of a set-up but my lettering is fairly large, and I don't like for the art to be crowded so that doesn't work as well for me. On the other hand, sometimes it simply take 5 panels to make a strip work, so I'll play around with the layout to try to make it work. If not, it may go to a Sunday strip.  Sundays are a lot of fun, and again, I try to stay away from the standard layout and use the space more effectively. Rather than just take a daily gag and throw in some more dialogue, I try to make the Sunday strips more visually impacting. It's tough to remember that in most cases that strip is gonna be only four inches tall and to still keep it simple. I'd love to be able to draw Sundays two feet wide like in the old days.

ANB:  How long did it take you to become syndicated?

Ted: From the beginning of making the decision to focus on a comic strip until my first contact with a syndicate, it took about 2 1/2 years.

ANB:  How many rejection letters did you get for "Spooner?"

Ted: I had actually signed my syndication contract before all the rejection letters had rolled in. From the first batch I submitted I received two letters of interest and four no-thank yous. I sent in a second batch that I'd been working on in the meantime, and decided to sign on with Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

ANB: Was "Spooner" your first comic strip?

Ted: A year before I started working on Spooner, I'd sent in a strip using characters I'd created when I was a kid. It was pretty forgetable, but a good experience in finding out what did and didn't work.

ANB:  So it wasn't hard to leave the old characters and ideas behind then?

Ted: Naw. They're sentimental, but I really didn't know what to do with them. Cartoon characters are like people... it takes time to get to know them, and over time you either grow fond of them, hate them or just don't care. The most fascinating aspect of creating brand new characters from scratch is that you don't know them at all at first, and over time their personalities start to develop in spite of what you want for them. It's like making any new friend... you know a little about them at first, but over time you start finding out new things about them that you didn't know before. And often, you leave your old friends behind that you've outgrown.

ANB:  When you first placed "Spooner" on the web, did you have a syndication contract?

Ted: I first put Spooner on the web while waiting for responses from the syndicates. It was an effort to motivate me to do a strip each day with a self-imposed deadline. It was also an opportunity to get feedback from readers, which is always encouraging and helpful. And of course, you were one of the first to give me feedback and offer a link to my site.

ANB:  Well I'm always glad to support strips I like!

Ted: In my book, that makes you more important than any newspaper syndicate. Now if you only had a team of salespeople...

ANB:  Once you achieved your goal of syndication, how did your life change?

Ted: It's two years later and my life is still changing. On a professional level, it allowed me to go ahead and commit myself to the strip. In order to do a truly good strip you have to be able to immerse yourself in it, so I was now able to do that. It let me know I could make a living at cartooning, which can be a difficult thing nowadays. Essentially, I was able to start taking myself seriously as a cartoonist, which can be strangely difficult to do.

A few days before I got that call from LATS, though, our first baby was born. That's changed my life more than anything else possibly could. Two of the best things in my life happened only a few days apart.

ANB:  What's the most difficult thing to deal with now that you are syndicated?

Ted: One thing that's rather difficult is focusing on the relationship between a woman and a man, namely my wife and myself, when there's a little ankle-biter who'd taken over the household. What's really been difficult, though, is having the strip put on hold due to the buyout of LATS by the Tribune Co. Spooner's launch was interrupted and it's been in a kind of stasis. Everyone I worked with at LATS is gone, except, thankfully, my editor Sarah Gillespie. She's the greatest.

ANB:  So is Spooner no longer syndicated?

Ted: Spooner is distributed by United Feature Syndicate as of September 30, 2001.

Editor's Note: Ted recently decided to go into self syndication.  He still retained all of the papers he had while he was with United Features and TMS.

ANB: Have you ever had your editor veto one of your strips?

Ted: I can think of only once when a strip was actually vetoed. I expected it, but thought I'd try it anyway. I think it is the best strip I've ever done. The subject matter may be too intense for a so-called family newspaper, I dunno. It's a syndicate editor's job to make sure nothing offensive gets by, because several newspaper editors don't like to bother with looking over the comics every day themselves. Therefore, you can have this sort of pre-emptive strike scenario. It's my experience, though, that the strips everyone worries about just glide right by readers, and the ones that get complaints, nobody could've predicted it in the first place.

Mostly, Sarah keeps me on course and tells me if she thinks a strip isn't working. Sometimes it's fixable, and sometimes it just never should've gotten past the initial doodle. More than anything, she's always been encouraging. I trust her.

ANB: Any plans on doing a "Spooner" book?

Ted: There'll be a Spooner anthology once I believe the market can support it. I don't believe we're in enough major markets to justify it yet. There's also the possibilities of working with regional markets, like Denver, and selling them on my website.

ANB:  What is your favorite comic strip(s)?

Ted: That's an incredibly difficult question. Of bygone strips, I'd say Peanuts, Gasoline Alley, Prince Valiant, Calvin & Hobbes, Pogo, Dennis the Menace and even early Family Circus. Of strips currently running, I enjoy reading Mutts, Monkeyhouse, Superosity, Sunday Gasoline Alleys, and sometimes Zits and FBOFW.

ANB:  What do you think of the web as a medium for comic strips?

Ted: I think that still, nobody has figured out a way to truly exploit the medium. The web is a great alternative for self-publishers, but the standard static comic strip format doesn't utilize it's potential. We've also gotta figure otu how to get paid more for it. As internet connections get faster and TV-like capabilities are more readily accessible, animation will probably dominate the area of online cartooning.

ANB: Yeah, but there's just something about a comic strip that animation will never fill.

Ted: That's absolutely true. It's just a question of whether the internet is a viable medium for an art form that originated and developed in the pages of newspapers. The size of comic strips are based on columns and inches, the same way an ad is. With the internet, there ISN'T anything to base size and format on... People use different screen settings, different browsers, customize the size of their browsers... I think things will work a little better when full-screen mode becomes more common. Different screen sizes can be "forced" on a viewer, but that can aggravate them. Still, you've got a whole computer screen to use and, even considering the smallest monitors out there, no cartoonist in his right mind, if given the print space equivalent of a 12" X 9" space, would use only a quarter of that space.

I think the biggest advantage web comics have is the less-restricted ability to do longer storylines. That's discouraged by the syndicates, for what may be good reasons initially, but at some point you have to give readers a reason to take the time to read your strip every single day. And that's what readers of online comics do, I'd guess, more so than the readers of newspaper comics.

Like you said, comics are a medium unto themselves, and just because you animate them doesn't make them any better. (I'll try to restrain from giving examples.) Same as taking a book and turning it into a movie. It becomes a completely different product. So I'm not saying animating comic strips is the route to take, but certainly people who read comics online expect a little more. We've got to literally think outside the box and give that to them. I say "we" because I hope to get back into the game before long.

ANB:  What's some advice you'd give to those trying to get their foot in the door?

Ted: It's important to develop the skills of the profession just like one would any other. The worst thing a cartoonist can do is just draw cartoons all the time. To improve one's writing, I recommend studying playwrights and even the better sit-coms.

Persistence is important, but so is knowing when to move on to the next strip idea. Becoming syndicated is less like winning the lottery than it is sending out resumes to get a job. I'd also like to see more cartoonists attempting self-syndication. It's always a plus, as well as a great experience, to have your work published.

Some good books on the subject are Your Career in Comics by Lee Nordling and any of the How To book by Randy Glasbergen (www.glasbergen.com). What's even better, though, is going through collections of comics that were done a hundred years ago. Those guys invented the whole medium, and hardly anything new has been tried since then.

ANB:  Anything else you'd like to add?

Ted: Write your local newspaper editor and tell them to start running Spooner!

ANB: I promise I will! : D Thanks Ted!